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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28396959">Batman: Blackbird's Song</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TowerofBabel/pseuds/TowerofBabel'>TowerofBabel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Barbara sings a love song to Dick, Deathstroke - Freeform, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick Grayson is hospitalized, Dick is struck down by Scarecrow's newest germ, Gen, Multi, Other, Post-assassination of Nightwing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:41:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28396959</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TowerofBabel/pseuds/TowerofBabel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick Grayson gets a dose of Scarecrow's Fear Germ during a hospital cafe fight with a patient after he undergoes corrective surgery to repair the damage by KG Beast's assassination attempt and it puts him in a delirious state. He has to be strapped to a bed and sedated to avoid from hurting himself and others. Barbara attempts to bring him back home from a nightmare state by singing Dick one of his favourite songs and there is a reason behind her choice. Suddenly Deathstroke waltz right into Dick's hospital room ready for whatever comes next.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Blackbird's Song</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Barbara Gordon was never one to dwell in sorrow. Dick had told her many times that feeling sad was only a temporary condition of extreme stress and worry.</p>
<p></p><div class="xcontrast">
<p></p><div>
<p></p><div><p>The world was a good and happy place, filled with joy, and life, and in all its essence should be celebrated on a positive note.</p><p>That is what she loved most about Richard John Grayson. Despite all the evil he'd seen and fought against over his career as a crime fighter, he always returned to a pleasant state of mind. He always saw the bright side of life.</p><p>She tried to remain positive, but when she saw him in this state, strapped down like some sort of mental patient, it was difficult to remain such. It made him look like those criminals Dick kept putting away. So, despite the consequences, she decided that he would be free, like he always said he felt when he was jumping through the air, as free as a bird in flight.</p><p>Taking off the velcro strap that was wrapped around his left wrist, she then held his hand. At least one arm would be free, but it made him look like an injured bird with only one working wing. His hand was warm as she held it, placing it against her cheek.</p><p>She said, "Come back to me, Dick. I love you, I always have. Despite all our hardships and disagreements, our times apart and woes, I've never cared for someone more deeply than you. I need you to come back. Fight Crane. Fight his Fear Germ. I know you're strong. You've always been stronger than most, stronger than me. You once told me that I was the only person who made you feel inferior. That's not true, and you know it." She knew Crane's fear germ enhanced a person's own worse fears, Dick's worse fear was losing the people he loved, or feeling he had disappointed people in his choices. "Your one big fear is your own self-doubt. So, don't doubt your own inner strength."</p><p>An article in <em>Psychology Weekly</em>, a magazine Barbara subscribed to, said that the voices of loved ones could sometimes get through to coma patients. Right now, Dick was one of them, sedated by drugs, subjected by an attack by Scarecrow. She also remembered music could, as well. Certain words or sounds could trigger emotions to stir and possibly wake the patient on their own.</p><p>Dick had a list of albums he put together of some of his favourite songs, all categorized into different genres, and he sometimes brought them along to listen to as he patrolled the streets of Gotham on those lonely nights.</p><p>Without his phone, however, which had been lost when he dropped it after being shot, she couldn't play any of his favourite songs. But there was one song Dick did like. It was number one on his Soft Listening Album List, she recalled.</p><p>She took a moment to recall the words, she then began to hum, and then with a soft, low voice, began to sing by the <em>Beatles</em>:</p><p>"<em>Blackbird singing in the dead of night;</em></p><p>
        <em>Take these broken wings and learn to fly;</em>
      </p><p>
        <em>All you life; You were only waiting for this moment to arise..."</em>
      </p><p>Dick once said her voice reminded him of the sweet sound of a songbird, chirping, its voice soft and soothing, on a crisp autumn morning, with a cool freshness in the air, sitting atop a tree branch. And once, when she sang to him, she had put him to sleep after a long and arduous night. He had been exhausted and she stayed with the whole night just in case he had a nightmare like he after did. She hoped, she could pull him back from his dreams with her voice.</p><p>"<em>Blackbird singing in the dead of night;</em></p><p>
        <em>Take these sunken eyes and learn to see;</em>
      </p><p><em>All your life; You were only waiting for this moment to be free…</em>"</p><p>She began to choke up, but kept singing:</p><p>"<em>Blackbird fly…</em></p><p>
        <em>Blackbird fly…</em>
      </p><p><em>Into the light of the dark black night…</em>"</p><p>Dick Grayson moaned, and then smiled, his eyes still closed. "I always loved that song," he said weakly. He gingerly opened his eyes. She gasped, as he turned his head to her. "I awake, and the first thing with my wandering eyes is a beautiful angel standing at my side…" Dick caressed her cheek with his hand. "I truly am in Heaven."</p><p>"Dick! Thank God, you're awake!" She immediately kissed him and he didn't resist. "But how?" she asked, after pulling back.</p><p>He told her what he had experienced, and discovered, and dreamt, and also, if he was right, that he had a cure for Scarecrow's Fear Germ that wqs haunting Gotham at the moment. He also inferred to whom he thought was responsible for shooting him in the head, and it was a multi-tier party, one of whom was Slade Wilson—Deathstroke.</p><p>She unstrapped him from the bed. "Tim and I came to the same conclusion. Slade—that bastard!"</p><p>Dick agreed. Slade Wilson was a bastard in every sense of the word. "He'd take any job if it paid enough," he said. "I was once his student. He taught me how to tap into my emotions to embattle my fighting ability, to reach deep down and to exploit my enemy's weaknesses to the fullest. That's why, these days, I have to hold back, or I'll really hurt someone."</p><p>"Do you think Jake Handles" -(the man who planned Nightwing's assassination)- "is the one who paid him?"</p><p>"It's highly probable," Dick said, sitting up. "With everything that transpired between him and I during my time at Spyral, the guy is out for revenge, and he has the connections and the knowhow to do it. Handles was a lunatic even before he turned rogue, everyone called him 'The Reaper' for a reason, so hiring a few hitmen, and setting up an elaborate plot to destroy me would be no problem for him, and it would be a means to an end to get back at me for what I did to him."</p><p>Dick felt his energy returning. His body was quickly fighting off the Fear Germ with positive emotion. It was amazing just how the power of positivity could be an effective antidote to such a powerful negative afflicting drug. The Fear Germ targeted depressive emotions and reached deep into the mindset of a person, drawing on the darkest emotions imaginable. It literally paralyzed a person into thinking all was hopeless and the only escape was to end it all. Dick knew that all too well, once feeling the same way. Being positive was one thing, but he knew he would still need some additional drugs or antibiotics to battle the remainder germ. He would beat it.</p><p>It was just like Crane to invent something so dastardly. But not everyone was a strong as Dick, so other medicine would be needed to fend off those infected. After he told the doctor what they needed, he'd leave the medical side to the professionals for the correct dose. Crane's reign of terror with the Fear Germ was over. He had an andidote.</p><p>A soft knock came at the door and then the doctor came in, carrying a computer pad. His brow rose when he saw Dick awake.</p><p>"Mr. Grayson, I'm surprised but pleased you're conscious, especially after what we went through," he said. He looked to Barbara as if to ask how. "I'm actually a little baffled, the drug was quite vicious. But I have good news. We managed to analyze the drug used on you, and we've learned it has a weakness to a certain Phosphorus, not commonly found in human cells." The doctor explained further.</p><p>Dick nodded, he didn't know the exact name of the medical drug the doctor mentioned when the doctor explained it, but he knew Phosphorus had something to do with it.</p><p>And the doctor explained it almost exactly how the medical journal Dick had read had phrased it. The "gold particle" phosphorus in combination with other drugs would attack and destroy the infectious germ and disseminate the extreme depression in those affected. Although, in some cases, therapy would also be needed for some.</p><p>"That's great news, Doctor," Dick said.</p><p>"We're still conducting experiments, but the man who infected you (and agent of Scarecrow) is improving. We tried it on him first. You seem to have beaten it on your own. You are quite an extraordinary man, Mr. Grayson."</p><p>"He is indeed, Doctor," Barbara said smiling, holding his hand.</p><p>"Further news. You'll be pleased to know the police have also managed to arrest the man who was impersonating a police officer here at the hospital, and he has admitted to giving his associate, the man you encountered in the cafe, what he refers to as a 'fear germ'. However, there is still the issue of your head injuries, and who performed the original surgery. We're still looking into that."</p><p>Barbara then told the doctor that the police had found the man who had performed the original surgery and that he was in custody, she got word from the GCPD, but stopped short of saying he was found dead, according to Tim during an investigation.</p><p>"That's good—"</p><p>"Please, I must see my grandson!" came a gruff sounding voice from out in the hall, behind the hoapital room door.</p><p>Dick, Barbara, and the doctor, all looked towards the door.</p><p>"Sorry sir, but you're not on the authorized list of visitors," a voice of a security officer said who was standing outside Dick's hospital room because of his condition after being almost killed by Scarecrow's fiend, the door was three-quarters shut. "And it's very late, visiting hours are well past over."</p><p>Dick and Barbara gave each other a look. Dick knew that it was definitely not his grandfather, unless he had come back from the dead and re-assumed his role as <em>Talon</em> in the <em>Court of the Owls</em>?</p><p>The voice, even without the mask, was undeniable. But the audacity that he, of all people, would come here was beyond scope.</p><p>The doctor wanted to see what all the commotion was about, but then Dick quickly said, "Doctor, let him in," he said low enough so it was not heard beyond the door. "But don't tell, my <em>grandfather</em>, that I've awoken. I want it to be a surprise."</p><p>"Yes," Barbara said, played along. "Dick's grandfather lives out of state, and I was finally able to get in contact with him," she fibbed. "He said he would be coming. I'm sorry, I forgot to inform you, doctor."</p><p>The doctor looked confused, but agreed. He headed to the door.</p><p>Dick returned to a sleeping position and Barbara loosely put the velcro straps back on to make it appear he was still secured to the bed. They heard the doctor converse with Dick's "grandfather" out in the hall, and was informed that he was to be added to the list, and that he was expected. And despite the very late hour, the doctor told the security guard that the man was to be allowed to see the patient, if only briefly.</p><p>When the door opened, Slade Wilson entered Dick Grayson's hospital room. He wore casual attire with a dark long coat. He had white hair and a gottee and his left eye was covered with an eye patch. He closed the door until it was almost shut and then separated his hands as if to indicate he had come unarmed. Barbara's eyes narrowed.</p><p>The history between Slade and Dick was notoriously well known within the Batfamily. Slade Wilson, also known as Deathstroke, was a hired mercenary, who had tried to murder Dick on several occasions, despite also being his teacher previously. Slade had agreed to teach Dick a few new fighting abilities to get stronger against his enemies. But as a result, Slade accomplished too well of a job, and Dick had to pull back his skills whenever he was in a heated battle.</p><p>The most notable instance of their rivalry concerned Slade's daughter Rose, when Nightwing was training <em>her</em>.</p><p>Slade threatened to murder Nightwing, but he couldn't do it in front of his daughter out of respect, so a deal was struck. If Nightwing stayed away from Rose, the two would part ways peacefully. As long as Slade kept his army of meta-villains out of Bludhaven, it was a deal. But that only lasted for a day and half when Slade with others attacked Bludhaven, murdering close to 100,000 people.</p><p>Slade looked like a lovable old gentleman without his mercenary attire at the moment, but to those who knew him, he was a cold-blooded killer. "My dear, Barbara, there's no need for that look," Slade said. "The moment I heard about Richard's recovery, I had see for myself. I come in peace, I promise you."</p><p>"You have some nerve, Slade," she kept her voice low, so the security guard wouldn't hear. She didn't want any problems. Slade wouldn't hesitate to kill the man and others if he was cornered.</p><p>Slade ventured to Dick's bedside. Slade looked at him, Dick's eyes were closed and he looked peaceful. "I wad told Richard had been subjected to Scarecrow's new Fear Germ." Slade leaned in closer. "Out of all the foolish things. Just because you're in a hospital, my boy, doesn't mean you're safe-."</p><p>Dick snapped his head around, yanked one hand from a loose strap, and grabbed Slade by his shirt collar, pulling him down to the bed, face-to-face. "Yeah, and you should heed your own advise!" he said through clenched teeth. Slade didn't struggle. "You shot me, you son-of-a-bitch!"</p><p>"It was a calculated shot, one in a million, and I'm was proud of it," Slade said arrogantly. "But I wasn't the only one that day…"</p><p>"I know there were two shooters. Who was the other one? KG Beast?"</p><p>"If you already know, why ask? But he's already fled. You won't find him. I've already tried. Jake Handles paid us both. We were both assurances if the other didn't hit the mark. I was never told. You know I work alone. We—I—was paid to hit you in the head with a blood capsule with a device inside to render you unconscious. After that, you'd be rushed to a hospital for brain surgery. The rest was up to others. I was only paid for my part in the plan."</p><p>"We figured as much, Tim actually thought of the same thing," Dick said.</p><p>Slade nodded, and said he as a smart kid.</p><p>Barbara went around and unstrapped the other velcro, freeing Dick completely.</p><p>"Tell me the whole plan, Slade." Dick gripped Slade's shirt tighter, twisting the collar. Slade gasped for breath, but he didn't try to resist. By the way he was reacting, Slade almost felt guilty for shooing his old student. Dick then released him and literally pushed him away. Slade rubbed his throat. "Don't bother, I think I have the general idea."</p><p>"It was an elaborate plan to destroy you, Richard, but I knew you were strong," Slade said. "I taught you well. Incidentally, I was also paid to kill the doctor who performed surgery on you, so all ties would be cut to Jake Handles. They say a person's memories are the most precious thing a person has. Handles thought if he could make you forget everything that you were, all the people you cared about, then that would be his ultimate revenge for taking everything away from him, namely Spyral, and the like."</p><p>"But he did that himself when he betrayed Spyral," Barbara added. "Dick told me everything."</p><p>"Of course he would," Slade said. "Richard trusts you implicitly." Then: "Think of it this way. Maniacs think differently than everyone else. All they need is a single trigger, just one, to set them off. Sometimes that's all it takes to escalate a complex. Obviously Handles needs someone to direct his anger towards, and he chose you, Richard, because of your time in Spyral together. Although, I'm not familiar with everything that transpired. Someday, you must enlighten me with tails of intrigue, and yours adventure as Agent 37. Or should I merely pick up an Ian Fleming novel?"</p><p>Dick rolled his eyes.</p><p>Slade smirked thinly. "As for Jonathan Crane, his motives are less than clear when he used that man to attack you here in the hospital with the Fear Germ. Perhaps he just saw an opportunity to eliminate a long standing enemy? Crane knows who you are, Richard, he has spes everywhre."</p><p>"Are you spying on us?" Barbara questioned.</p><p>"Need you have to ask?" Slade admitted.</p><p>With a serious loom, Dick said: "Slade, I want you to do a favour for me, and don't you dare refuse. You owe me, for shooting me."</p><p>"I don't like that tone, Richard. I'm not one to respond to idol threats. What if I refuse, you'll have me arrested?" Dick gave him a hate filled glare. Slade cleared his throat. "But because we have history, I'll do this one favour for you. Before you tell me, however, let me take a wild stab in the dark. You want me to find Crane?"</p><p>"The man's a freakin' mindreader, Barb," Dick said with a quirky grin.</p><p>"Yeah, a regular mentalist," she said sarcastically with an equal quirky smile.</p><p>Slade eyed them both.</p><p>He went to leave, but stopped just at the door, and within earshot of the security guard outside. He turned around, and said: "I'm glad you're okay, grandson. Now, I know you and your sweetheart are madly in love, but it's a late and you've just been through a heralding ordeal. So, it's time to cool it with the lovey-dovey stuff and get some rest. I approve, but she may break your stitches."</p><p>Barbara's mouth dropped and Dick's eyes budged with befuddlement, because it was completely out of character for Slade. That was more like something Dick would say to get the last word.</p><p>Dick threw a pillow at Slade as he left the room. But he couldn't help but smirk.</p><p>He then turned to Barbara, and said, "You look exhausted. When was the last time you got any rest?"</p><p>"You were my main concern," she said. "But I'm more curious how you beat Crane's Fear Germ that was inside you without medication?"</p><p>"Roosevelt once said, 'The only thing to fear is fear itself'. So, I fought back. And in the process remembered what was most important to me. I don't plan on forgetting what's most precious to me ever again. And I've decided on something" —he grasped her hand and took it between both hands— "I never ever want to lose you, Barbara. I thought I had when I suffered amnesia and I'm so happy things turned out for the best. Best is best, as long as have you."</p><p>"Oh, Dick…"</p><p>And they kissed.</p><p>End</p></div></div></div><div class="maxwidth">
  <p> </p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Payback is a bitch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Slade goes after Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow for targeting his student, Dick Grayson, whom he admires deep down, and delivers a lesson to the villian he will never forget!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div>
<p></p><div><p>But he could think of only one man who had even the slightest inkling to the cure: Nightwing.</p><p>The crime fighter said he had read a medical article in passing and it said that gold particles in minute doses could help cure cancerous-like ailments if used properly with other elements. It also helped with mental illness related diseases, which was what the Fear Germ really was—designed to play on the deepest, darkest fears of people, using bacteria warfare.</p><p>Nightwing thought he had been alone when he passed on his theory to someone on his cellphone. But Crane had listened in, with his own methods, and then was when he knew he had to eliminate Nightwing. He had the perfect opportunity—infecting him with the Fear Germ in Gotham General Hospital, when one of his contacts informed him the hero was recovering from a serious injury.</p><p>He bribed a police officer, and then paid a poor sap from Bludhaven, who needed money, to pretend to take him to GGH under the pretext of drug recovery, then poison the man who Crane had been told was the crime fighter. In the end, the idiot not on poisoned himself, and nearly died, but it was later revealed, Crane had been given misinformation. It was a case of mistaken identity.</p><p>Richard Grayson was not Nightwing, and was merely recovering from a nasty fall, whereas he hit his head and had to have surgery. He was poisoned, nonetheless, but recovered without explanation. It was like he had the mental capacity and the will to drive off his Fear Germ, something equivalent to a psychotic bubonic plaque, and cast it away, like it was the common flu.</p><p>Nevertheless, a cure to his Fear Germ was found soon after that. The media said a doctor at GGH had discovered it through tireless work and elimination process.</p><p>"I'll just have to devise a better fear drug, one where there is seemingly no cure," Crane said. "But they'll still pay me for one!"<br/>
He was never one to laugh, laughter was the best medicine to depression and fear, as the saying went—it created chemical endorphins that drove away negative feelings—but he chuckled to himself anyway knowing next time he would be successful.</p><p>He sat at a table and poured two chemicals into a beaker mentally calculating each percentage to include to make a new mixture, then lit a bunson burner that sat on underneath. The flame tickled the bottom of the glass as it began to warm the liquids, bubbling it. With his knowledge of bio-chemicals in phobia and psychopathy, he knew he could make pretty much anything he desired. And an even more deadlier fear germ was needed, one that would bring Gotham City to its knees.</p><p>Once a renown doctor of psychology, he knew what it meant to run from one's fears. His father tried to toughen him up, but he was so scared when he was a child, he almost took his own life. But as he grew, he entered the medical field, and vowed to study the characteristics of phobia, and to one day find a cure to his own. He thought he had found one and injected himself with it.</p><p>Instead, he found a new method to study fear—with first hand accountability. He decided, it was more effective, and better, to get a more thorough understanding of the true concept of fear with live experimentation, generating it on the human psyche, administering it live, and then sitting back and observing his subjects to see how they handled themselves and how they came up with a solution. Cause, Effect and Education, and it was the best way to learn, adapt, and grow. In truth, he was doing humanity a favour.</p><p>When he first began his experiments, he stayed in the shadows. Then he created the Scarecrow persona to branch out and subject people to his newest drugs in public, watching them wallow in the effects. But he got bored with one subject at a time, and he wondered what it would be like to see mass hysteria after one of his drugs was administered to an unsuspected populace? Of course, this not only caught the eye of the Gotham City police, but also Batman—Gotham's "White Knight" of vigilante justice.</p><p>Over the years, he had had several entanglements with the Caped Crusader and his ever growing list of annoying sidekicks, each time, they foiled his plans to blanket Gotham City in an ever-lasting cumulus of fear.</p><p>And this time, it was no different. And he cursed himself for his own lack of insightfulness.</p><p>But how did he know that a simple medical article in a backwater journal on the medicinal properties of gold would ruin everything? And that Nightwing—whom he assumed was only some stupid aerobatic jock—would read it, and understand it?</p><p>He underestimated Nightwing, but he won't make the same mistake in the future.</p><p>Around him sat items of assorted liquids and powders like an old medicinal alchemist lab and he used several of them to experiment with for his latest drug—this one would be the next big deadly drug. He knew what everything could do, either stand alone, or how it could be most efficient as a combined compound. With his brilliant mind, he knew where everything was. Everything had its place and there was a place for everything here, his mind remembering where he had placed things to get easy access to them.</p><p>Gotham City would have no other choice but to pay him a king's random for the antidote for this new drug. And yet, that's what he asked for as payment for a cure to his Fear Germ. Now, he would get nothing.</p><p>But he would not let the fear of failure stop him. He was better than that.</p><p>Just then, as he was poring another liquid chemical into the beaker sitting on the bunsen burner, the door to his apartment, his personal sanctuary, burst open, hitting the back wall, and standing at the threshold holding a rifle was the person everyone knew by reputation, generating his own brand of fear: The man known as <em>Deathstroke, the Terminator</em>. He was recognized instantaneously by anyone familiar with the criminal underworld by his black and orange mask, which was his own signature moniker.</p><p>The rifle Deathstroke branded was a semi-automatic and it could easily cut down a person, shredding them to ribbons in seconds.</p><p>The apartment complex Crane decided to hide himself in after his reign of terror in Gotham had ended was in a bad part of town and he thought no one was stupid enough to bother him here. The average person would steer well clear of this place due to the people that reside within: drug dealers, recently released prison inmates, and other degenerates. When he came here, the landlord assured him completely anonymity and amnesty to do what he wanted. Money was no object as long as he was left alone. So much for that.</p><p>Crane bounced off his stool, stood on his feet, and said, "What the hell are you doing here, Deathstroke?"</p><p>"I knew I would find a gutter-rat like you hiding in a dirt hole like this," the mercenary said. "It's true what they say: money talks."</p><p>Crane backed up as Deathstroke entered further into the apartment. "What do you want with me?"</p><p>The mercenary looked around and waved a hand to his masked face as if he could smell the mixture of chemicals scattered around, an assault to his senses. Throughout the years in dealing with chemicals of every sort, Crane had lost much of his smell.</p><p>"Didn't anyone warn you about the effects of inhaling your own drugs, Crane?" Deathstroke rotated his rifle to his other hand, as if attempting some sort of intimidation factor. "You're such a hard man to find as of late," he then said.</p><p>"There's a reason for that. I'm a wanted man."</p><p>"I know. But a cure for your Fear Germ isn't anymore."</p><p>If he could see it, Crane knew he would probably see a smile on Deathstroke's face. For whatever reason. The mercenary seemed happy that one of his own—one of Batman's Rogue's—had failed. But he never truly thought of Deathstroke as an ally against Batman. Deathstroke had his own issues with the Caped Crusader and he was a loner in his plight to destroy the Dark Knight. And yet, on occasion, he would assist Batman for his own reasons.</p><p>Crane sneered. "Yes, I know. And whoever found it is going to pay. I'll make them pay for ruining my plans to turn Gotham City into the first pathogenic infected megalopolis with me as its saviour. I would've be both its disease and its cure."</p><p>"Ironic that what you asked for, a king's ransom, is the very thing that saved Gotham—<em>gold</em>," Deathstroke said, snorting a chuckle.</p><p>Crane slammed a hand on the table next to him, then remembered about his experiment, and was thankful the reverberation didn't knock it over. In his moment of anger, he nearly spoiled his new drug, and the explosion, if the beaker fell off the burner, would probably destroy half the room.</p><p>"You're coming with me, Crane," Deathstroke then said. "I have an unsettled debt and you're it. He wanted me to collect you and bring you back for some well deserved justice. You can either walk out of here under your own power or I can drag you out screaming. And trust me, the landlord to this place won't report a thing. As I said, money talks."</p><p>Crane frowned. "Why? You're a mercenary for hire, not someone's lapdog. Have you turned turncoat for good?"</p><p>"Think of it as payback for your crimes."</p><p>"From whom?"</p><p>Deathstroke reached into a pouch attached to his belt and putted out something black. Then he pressed a button on it and wings ejected from its sides like that of a bat. But it was not a Batarang. It was one of Nightwing's knock-off's, that he christian a Wingding.</p><p>Crane gasped. "Is that…"</p><p>"Yes, it is. And if you ever try to assault my former student again, I'll kill you."</p><p>Despite Deathstroke's previous offer of an option of letting Crane walk out on his own or being dragged out, he then decided on his own, and whipped the Wingding at Crane, striking him squarely between the eyes, knocking him down.</p><p>Crane groaned, half-unconscious. The sound of Deathstroke's boots came closer as he lay on the floor.</p><p>Then he felt his body being lifted into the air, and his vision bounced, his eyes crossed after being hit, his body limp, arms dangling down below his head, as he looked at Deathstroke's feet. Deathstroke switched off Crane's bunson burner before heading to the door with Crane over his shoulder.</p><p>"No, my experiments," Crane mumbled.</p><p>He tilted his head slightly and saw Deathstroke looking down at him.</p><p>The last thing Crane heard and saw before it was light's out was the mercenary mocking him, and saying, "Your days of magic potions are done, Merlin," before he was punched in the head. Everything went black.

END.</p></div></div>
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